


Her Worth

by AGRey701000



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Heartwrenching, Traumatic Experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 19:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9285875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGRey701000/pseuds/AGRey701000
Summary: Master Splinter often wondered what it would’ve felt like to be in this exact situation with his daughter Miwa---going through the necessary step, as is the parent’s duty, to breech the subject of sexual intercourse. Would he have felt the way he felt now---a tightening and strange affliction of nervousness but peppered with acute hostility aimed at the supposed suitor and over-protectiveness of his child?





	

**Author's Note:**

> DO NOT REPOST. DO NOT EDIT. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE TMNT FRANCHISE OR ANY AFFILIATES.  
> Copyright © 2016 Antonia G. Reyes All Rights Reserved.
> 
> Italics = Master Splinter Bold = Raphael Non-Bold = Mona Lisa/Y'Gythgba
> 
> ******

Master Splinter often wondered what it would’ve felt like to be in this exact situation with his daughter Miwa---going through the necessary step, as is the parent’s duty, to breech the subject of sexual intercourse. Would he have felt the way he felt now---a tightening and strange affliction of nervousness but peppered with acute hostility aimed at the supposed suitor and over-protectiveness of his child? His outward appearance gave nothing away; he was the epitome of ‘calm and serene’ but more so with an apt sense of his tail vigorously sweeping back and forth behind him. Here he was, his second oldest son and his apparent ‘girlfriend’, if he could even call her this awaiting to sit with him and ‘talk’.

His son hadn’t uttered a single word about this… _Mona Lisa_ , was that right? He’d heard his third oldest son, Donatello, say that name within a sentence to Raphael and to his intrigue, the hot-headed terrapin had exasperatedly and loudly snapped back----“ **CAN WE JUST DROP THE MONA LISA THING ALREADY!? SERIOUSLY!** ” Ever since that day, the mystery of Mona Lisa hadn’t left the ninja master’s mind---it was a thought that lingered in the corners of his mind and one that he would ruminate on in the long hours of the night while his sons slept. He pondered, he meditated but he dared not to pry; it wasn’t something he felt compelled to do. Eventually Raphael would come to him to discuss the subject in the privacy of his father’s room and trappings.

Master Splinter  _had_  thought that the day Raphael had his phobic relapse that his son would reveal  _all_  that happened in space, but…unfortunately his red-banded son had not elaborated on the extent of his space travels, only mentioning the bit about the bug infested planet.

Again, Master Splinter patiently accepted that this particular subject would not be given up willingly to him. So, with some slight disappointment, he allowed his son to keep his secrets.

That had been a year or so ago. Now, here he was, with his red-banded son and his apparent object of affection sitting before him.

A slight ghost of a smile touched his lips before it was quickly replaced by a non-distinguishable straight line. A beat had past.

*****

“ **Father, let me introduce you to Y'Gythgba, Lieutenant to Commander G’Throkka of the Salamandrian Military of Salamandria**.”

The ninja master’s ears twitched in surprise, he stroked his long piece of beard, so…the young lady had a title, and an impressive title at that. But, no…she surely couldn’t be a teenager,  _surely not_ ….

“ _Hmm, an impressive title Miss Y’Gythgba, is it? Tell me, how old did you say you were….?_ ”

At the mention of ‘age’, the look of embarrassment on his son’s face wasn’t missed.

“I did not say Sir, but I am sixteen earth years.” The lizard alien looked straight at the rat master with an air of resolution.

Master Splinter held her eyes; she did not give off the impression of being dishonest. The rat ninja hummed his acceptance of her answer.

“ _That must’ve been a career path quiet difficult for your parents to accept, may I ask, how did your parents feel about your choice to join the military at such a young age?_ ”

He could sense Raphael’s nervous and slightly annoyed energy but he blocked it out, Raphael was his beloved son and any new addition to the clan, especially one not of earth, would be subjected to questioning.

At this question, the female humanoid lizard alien tilted her head in mild… _apathy_?

“We Salamandrians are a warrior race and as such we all begin basic training at the young age of four. It is comparable to, I believe, earthling school years…? A rite of passage if you will. It is essential for survival; of course, after our commencement, we are not required to join the military unless we wish to remain.”

“And as for my parentals…well, I was orphaned at the age of two. Salamandria’s history is wrought in conflict and war, both off our world and on it. You see, when I was born, Salamandria was fighting a civil war with the Newt nation of my planet, be as it may, when I hatched, that is the situation in which I breathed my first bit of air. My parents, from what I was told were commoners, humble and hardworking but who’s to say. Shortly after my second birthday, I don’t remember much except awaking to shouting in the night, my mother putting me in a cellar and then…darkness. That is when Commander G’Throkka discovered me, though he was just a Captain then. From here I was taken to an orphan school where I was kept and trained. When I was ten, Commander G’Throkka had come to the commencement ceremonies and he remembered me, he offered me a position in the army and I accepted the proposition.”

At this revelation, the air in the room shifted from buzzing to heavily intense. To say that there wasn’t a twitch or pang of sympathy and especially empathy running through Master Splinter’s heart for the young lady would be a gross understatement. However, what disturbed him most was the apparent indifference in which she spoke about her past. As if it meant nothing or as if she were relaying a field report to a superior officer.

She appeared so matter-of-fact about it; as if she was devoid of any semblance of deeper feeling. Before proceeding with further questions, the ninja master chanced a gentle glance at his uncharacteristically quiet son. What he saw only seemed to further confound him; instead of seeing a face of under surprise or even mortification from his son, being that he suspected they hadn’t possibly reached any type of relative level of sharing personal history such as this, he was—to say the least somewhat astounded to find in Raphael’s eyes and face the emotions of empathy, remorse and…. _love_?  He looked between the two, Raphael kneeling to his left looking longingly at Y’Gythgba and the alien on his right kneeling, not returning the gaze but looking forward. He did a once over of her body language and found her to be solid as rock but…with an almost too tightly rigid posture, he could see she was putting forth great effort to appear strong. At this, he found his countenance loosen slightly, he hummed.

“ _My deepest condolences. It must’ve been a difficult and lonely life for you in the orphanage---_ ”

“Not so much difficult but… _lonely_ , yes.” The Salamandrian adverted her eyes momentarily before resuming her unwavering gaze.

“ _Hmm…I see, well…tell me Miss---_ ”

“I do not mean to come across as disrespectful Sir, but may I be blunt?” Master Splinter’s ears twitched with curiosity, he tilted his head, “ _If you so wish my dear. What is your question?_ ”

“It is not a question. I know very well why Raphael and I are present before Sir. You know that your son and I formed an attachment while in space. What you want to really know is, have we been intimate sexually?”

“ **Mona…what?!** ” For the first time within the room, Raphael spoke, though it was hardly what one would call intelligible. It was almost comical to see how animated Raphael’s features became, eyes nearly bugging out and looking between his father and his supposed girlfriend, fearing the worst.

The rat master may not have shown it outwardly, but internally, he was bulking at this young lady’s sensibility. Such a heightened awareness she seemed to have of things and situations.

He cleared his throat, “ _Well, as you have so aptly stated it, yes I do desire to know. I suspect, given Raphael’s change of face, there have been some exchanges of…affection?_ ”

The Salamandrian, now that the air, for her, had been alleviated, seemed to slightly relax. “Aside from the occasional nose and lip kisses, hand holding and love mail, no. We have not been sexually intimate.”

He looked between the two once more, Raphael was now beat red—the rat master internally chuckled to himself, his second oldest had always had difficulty with rightfully expressing deep emotions and when he was faced with them, he got so flustered and embarrassed.

He looked at Y’Gythgba, to his mild relief, he found her once sharp features had softened slightly and…was there a slight  _blush_  upon her cheeks?

The rat silently was thanking this young lady’s astuteness for breaching the delicate subject before he had to. Now that the ice was broken, he could tread into this without too much awkwardness.

“ _I am glad to hear this. Now, the next matter we must discuss, if you two are or do intend to remain together into the future….the subject of children…has it crossed your minds?_ ”

He suspected that it had not been brought up, but for lack of beating around the bush, he supposed he too could return the bluntness of questioning.

Almost instantly, the reactions of the two youths had been like fire and ice----Raphael, having recovered from his mini loss of composure appeared genuinely surprised and contemplative of the question, whereas Y’Gythgba, having once been lax, now instantly deflated and lost the blush but surprisingly held the light softness in her eyes while the rest of her re-hardened.

“ **Wow…ah, Dad, I hadn’t even thought about it but….that would mean…Mona…?** ”

For her part, the usually confident Salamandrian warrior was both uncharacteristically withdrawn.

This seemed to send alarm bells off within Raphael and he fully turned himself and reached gently for his love’s hand. Squeezing her fingers to gage a response. All the while, the rat master watched the exchange in contemplative silence.

“I am afraid that...even if we were to become sexually intimate….there would be little chance of children Raphael.” After uttering this statement, Y’Gythgba, gaze boring a hole in the carpet, never once even looking up at her beloved or his father, she coconsciously grasped her armored stomach.

Stunned silence---heavy once again. Raphael furrowed his brows, invaded the remainder of Y’Gythgba’s space with his hand that once grasped her hand now cupping her right cheek to force her face in his direction and to dared her eyes to look at him.

“ **Hey…come on, look at me. Y’Gythgba, _Mona Lisa_  look at me… _talk to me_.** ”

A silence, Master Splinter looked at the obviously troubled Salamandrian; he could feel it in waves, the deep sorrow, bitterness, the  _shame_? He suspected his red-banded son could also feel these highly potent and presently toxic feelings.

“ _My dear, Raphael is right. Sometimes, the best solution for pain is to release it in words. Please, won’t you confide in us…?_ ”

There was a shudder of breath, the young Salamandrian looked up at her love’s concerned eyes, his gorgeous neon green that she fell prey to every time she looked into them. She leaned her face into his palm, pressing part of her mouth against his fingers. She lifted her hands to hold tight the hand that cupped her face. She gave him one final look of reassurance and then the sai-wielder returned to his frontal position facing his father but now openly looking between the two.

*****

Y’Gythgba, resigned to what she was to share, composed herself. She looked up at Raphael’s father and sighed.

“It happened when I was twelve, I had been a non-ranking solider in the Salamandrian army, and we had valiantly defended ourselves against our enemies in approximately two fairly serious battles within a siege. It was also by this time that Commander G’Throkka had requested I now be promoted as a squadron leader, I felt so honored… _honored_ …heh.”

“In the third and final battle of this siege war, as my comrades and I fought, we’d been outnumbered by the enemy, my small unit of twenty now cut down to merely five able bodied soldiers…we, we fought our way out and barely made it but not before being blindsided by artillery fire—the enemy’s last ditch effort to destroy us….”

“I received the worst of it, taking up the front---I was able to sabotage the weapon but at the price of being stabbed by a laser sword to my abdominal and genital regions.”

“I woke up in the sick bay, the Commander at my bed side. He’d relayed the aftermath of my squadron’s fate---they’d all been killed and I left for dead. I was picked up by an allied group because they’d found I was still remarkably clinging to life. They brought me to the makeshift hospital where the doctor and nurses worked to save my life.”

“Well…I was saved but…..they’d found that the sword that did the primary damage had been so crudely jabbed into me that the tip of it had broken off and been embedded in me, which then proceeded to further damage my reproductive organs…and my genitalia as well.”

“They were able to save it all, barely….the doctor told me that given the severity of my internal injuries that my chances of one day conceiving or even being able to perform decent consummation would be both exceedingly painful and near impossible or detrimental if I even managed to conceive by miracle—chances of the baby or myself surviving would be slim to nil.”

Where could one possibly regain word of mouth or thought after hearing such an account of a cruelly dealt hand of fate?  _My God….so much tragedy…so much loss, sadness….my god_. This child, whose life was filled with nothing but trials and tribulations from her birth to now…a child who had chosen the path of an adult before even reaching adulthood.

“ _I…my deepest and sincerest apologies. I did not wish to make you relive such a tragedy._ ”

The rat master’s ears flattened and his face shown compassion. As the silence proceeded it was only alleviated by the shaky intake of breath of the Salamandrian warrior.

Master Splinter looked at his red-banded son with sympathy,  _oh Raphael_ …the said teenage turtle was eerily quiet, but the ninja master could see past the silence---his son was in utter turmoil, his once bright and vibrant neon green eyes now dangerously drained of light and replaced with an oncoming storm front.

The forlorn master look upon the female alien; she had a great deal of will and fire----she reminded him of an ever steadily burning hearth, even, calm, balanced but…just as a hearth, the fire was fast extinguishing, quieting to a near ember of itself.

“To…to be honest with you Sir, at the time of this…incident, I hadn’t truly grasped the full understanding and repercussions of my situation. I had truthfully been more upset at my utter failure on the battlefield—failing to bring even one or two soldiers home…I felt like such a disgrace.”

“The Commander however did not see it that way however. He….he  _promoted_  me from a squadron leader to a corporal captain…..”

“My body no longer would be or perform as other females’ bodies, but….being a solider, death was a constant possibility; I didn’t think I would live long enough to even contemplate the issue. But, the years went on, I grew older and with each turn I was reminded constantly of my ‘insufficiency’.”

“Potential betrothals came and went…no one desired a ‘ _ruined_ ’ female as their mate.”

“In time, the sting of such rejection became callus and I resigned myself to a life without a mate. I survived and grew stronger, I persevered….I was content with my fate…but  _then_ ….” Y’Gythgba paused, her eyes had been etched in bitterness until this moment---suddenly clouded over and glistening.

 

“….then I met  _you_ …” the Salamandrian turned herself slowly to face her love, “…I met you and  _everything_  changed.” The fortress succumbing to the elements, a muted rain flowed from Y’Gythgba’s eyes.

“It was as if I’d been walking blind my whole life till that moment…” Y’Gythgba reached for Raphael’s left hand, pressing it against her damp cheek, willing the distraught red-banded turtle to look at her.

 

It was as if, the master ninja was no longer in the room; the shift in attention had centered on only two aching souls….Master Splinter, however, hadn’t the heart to break the spell, he merely held his bated breath, observing these two young and tormented children.

 

Raphael’s head turned and he allowed himself to look at this beautiful female---take all of her in, really absorb her; how real and vulnerable she was to him in this moment. He could feel the familiar sting at the back of his eyes…the heat on his cheeks.

“….you were tenacious,  _brave_ ,  _noble_ …you…you called me  _beautiful_ ….” Raphael swallowed the lump in his throat, the anxiousness rising, his beloved whimpered and gasped as she spoke, she was trembling… Raphael’s already crumbling composure finally broke, “ **Please don’t…just, please don’t cry, shush…shush…** ” Oh God how he wanted to pull her into his yearning arms, embrace her tightly—kiss her sadness away, take on all her burdens…oh how he loved her.

“…for the first time in my life, I felt like I was more…more than just a warrior, a Salamandrian…I felt like I could be with you,  _My Love,_  I feel I could give it all up and truly be a woman…but…”

“…I will never be able to be a mate worthy of you…all that I am is a simple solider, I can’t have children Raphael, I can never be----”

The weeping Salamandrian is silenced by lips, lips that roughly smashed against hers, the kiss was desperate, passionate and  _needed_.

The sai-wielding turtle broke the kiss and held firmly to Y’Gythgba’s face—his eyes piercing, damp with angry tears.

“ ** _SHUT UP_ , just shut up----now you listen to  _me_.** ”

“ **Did you really think I would drop you like that? Well you got another thing coming---I’M NOT SOME FREAKIN FLY BY NIGHT TURTLE! YOU GOT THAT? _I’m freakin in love with you!_  Do you love me?**”

 **“** But----”

“ **No--! Shut up! I asked you a question, DO. YOU. LOVE. ME. OR NOT?** ”

Raphael stared Y’Gythgba down hard—deadly and deliberate.

The Salamandrian held his eyes, despite the fact that hers’ were still dispersing droplets.

“YES. Infinitely.”

The red-banded turtle sighed in relief, “ **OK. GOOD. Then there’s nothing left to talk about. As long as we have one another, we don’t need anything else. _I_  don’t need anything else. Just you and me forever.**”

Raphael then proceeded to stand up, pulling Y’Gythgba along with him. The red-banded teenage turtle looked up at his father.

“ **I think we’re done for today Father.** ” He said this with such an air of finality that the master ninja’s heart swelled with pride--- _truly the protector of all_.

Master Splinter nodded his head resolutely. “ _Yes my son---_ ” the rat master smiled warmly, placing a clawed hand on the Salamandrian’s shoulder, making her look up at him timidly.

“--- _it has been a taxing day for all of us indeed. I do believe it is time for sleep; my dear, you will honor our clan greatly to stay here for the time being….with your **betrothed**_.”

Before the two stunned teenagers could say a word, Master Splinter disappeared from their side into his bedroom.

He smiled to himself--- _yes, Raphael could not have chosen better_ \---they were so alike yet so different in life experience and upbringing but he sensed that they would be able to overcome any obstacles that would surely come their way. Yes. Indeed they would.


End file.
